Jordanian journalist skewers American Middle East policy
By Jeremy Reynalds
web posted December 9, 2002
(Amman, Jordan) A leading Jordanian journalist is blasting what
he calls special interest groups for unfairly influencing the Bush
administration policy in favor of Israel.
Rami Khouri, a journalist specializing in economic, political and
religious issues, as well as being the former editor of the Jordan
Times, is a Jordanian/Palestinian (as well as an American national
who was born in New York). He has lived in Jordan for 27
years. In a recent interview he told me that while he has great
respect for the American political system he is also aware of
some of its shortcomings.
Khouri said that one of those "imperfections" allows special
interest groups to "skew" the policies of the American
government. He claimed that this is clearly evidenced in the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
According to Khouri, there are many ways that special interests
can "distort" an American foreign policy. By that Khouri said he
doesn't mean they distort the entire system, "but they push it
away from the center and toward one side." He believes that is
clearly occurring in terms of America's positions concerning the
Middle East and while it's a situation that started occurring after
the 1967 war, the consequences have only just begun to emerge.
Khouri said, "There are all kinds of different groups that are pro-
Israeli. For example, You have pro-Israeli Jewish and Zionist
groups. Then you have Christian groups and others groups that
are neither evangelical nor Jewish. These different groups ... that
are pro-Israeli distort the American policy by working on the
special interests in Washington."
Khouri said that as a result, "People in this region have reached
the point of exasperation and many of them are turning to
violence and terror. We have to stop this cycle and turn it around
but we have to understand that we didn't get here whimsically or
in a vacuum. We got here after decades of certain policy
decisions (which) we've got to undo ... and make better ones."
Khouri said more specifically the feeling throughout the Arab
world is that the United States is treating the Arab-Israeli
situation one way and the rest of the world another. "(It's not)
applying in the Arab and Israeli issues the same kinds of values
and equality of equal rights that it applies in its own country and
throughout the world ."
Khouri said no one is expecting the United States to be pro-
Palestinian or pro-Arab; just to treat everyone the same.
Khouri said American favoritism toward Israel is just another
example of bad American foreign policy in general.
For example, Khouri said, "One of the things that we should see
in the September 11 terror attacks, criminal as they were, is that
they did not just whimsically emerge out of nowhere. These and
other problems that we see are the consequence of decades and
decades of wrong and unfair policies in the Arab world, in Israel
and the United States. I think that we must clearly see that
everyone has to share responsibility. We're not saying that it's
only the fault of the Americans."
According to Khouri, the United States, the Arab world and
Israel should all shoulder some of the blame for the events of
September 11 and other issues.
"(They) have bought modern history to a point where now you
have American military bases all over the region and people
killing ... and bombing each other. We really must turn this cycle
around and get back to a more rational way to live."
Khouri said it has been his experience at street level that
Americans in Jordan or Arabs in the United States are very
comfortable with the two different cultures. Khouri said the
challenge to both sides is to translate their shared national,
cultural and religious values into viable political realities.
Khouri said we need to "implement these values instead of just
talking about them and following American policies that we see
as being extremely biased against the Palestinians and for
Israelis, rather than being equal for Israeli and Palestinian rights
of the same quality."
Khouri said that can be done by reviewing our foreign policy for
the last 30 to 40 years and seeing if we can do better.
However, Douglas Silliman, head of the Political Section at the
United States Embassy, said there's more to it than that.
Silliman said, "A lot of Jordanians blame the United States for
the situation. They believe that the U.S. has the power to solve
the problem by putting pressure on Israel. But American support
for Israel is a domestic issue, not a political issue. Too many
Arabs say we should quit supporting Israel but Arabs need to tell
us why we should support Arab countries."
Silliman said that Jordan has made a good start toward this end
by, for example, King Abdullah's frequent apologies on national
media for the tragic events of September 11. "(He) has said
many times on national media how sorry he is for September 11.
Most other Islamic leaders haven't said this and Jordan is
beginning to reap the benefits of (speaking out)."
Silliman added that you don't have to tear down Israel to support
Arab countries and the American perspective is that the
Jordanian government has "a very forward view" concerning the
conflict.
Jeremy Reynalds is a freelance writer and the founder and
director of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency
homeless shelter. He has a master's degree in communication
from the University of New Mexico and is pursuing his PhD in
intercultural education at Biola University in Los Angeles. He is
married with five children and lives in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. His work can be viewed here and weekly at
www.americasvoices.org. He may be contacted by e-mail at
reynalds@joyjunction.org.
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